Institute For The Future

From diseased or disabled to regenerated or enabled

From the peg legs of pirates of yore to the Six Million Dollar Man’s bionic parts, we have long been fascinated with the replacement of damaged body parts. While it has become fairly common-place to replace a heart valve or a bum knee with biomechanical equivalents, the idea of re-growning tissue or organs, however, has not had much of a place in our cultural mythology. After all, with the exception, to some extent, of the liver and skin, once tissue in the human body begins to break down, the process is irreversible. We cannot re-grow a lost fingertip the way a salamander can re-grow its tail—or can we?

 

Regenerative medicine, which encompasses developments in tissue engineering and stem-cell based therapies, can replace, restore, maintain, or enhance tissue and organ functions, dramatically improving a patient’s health, quality of life, and potentially the cost of their care. For example, every year, about 25 percent of diabetic patients develop foot ulcer-related complications that ultimately result in amputation and cost the U.S. more than $1 billion dollars annually, according to the National Institutes of Health. The use of “scaffolds” of extracellular matrices to heal these wounds will dramatically reduce the number of amputations performed. Tissue engineering is poised to change the future of orthopedic surgery, as well; rotator cuff injuries and osteoarthritic joints will be repaired not by surgical intervention, but by ligaments, cartilage, and bone re-grown with autologous cells.

 

In addition to the promise of regenerative medicine, advanced prosthetic devices will enable users to attain a range of natural function and movement. Biomechatronic-based limb replacements use electronic devices, such as biosensors and actuators, to interface with the body’s nervous and muscle systems to replicate the complex motions of human joints and limbs. Neuroprostheses, of which the cochlear implant is an early and successful example, also include the development of artificial retinas that will restore sight to people who are blind from conditions such as age-related macular degeneration. And Alzheimer’s and stroke patients whose memory loss is the result of damage to the brain’s hippocampus has been damaged, will have their memory restores by implanted computer chips.